


An Image of Departure

by redbrickrose



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrickrose/pseuds/redbrickrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set immediately post-"Evolution of the Daleks"<br/>Originally posted: 05/2007</p>
    </blockquote>





	An Image of Departure

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately post-"Evolution of the Daleks"  
> Originally posted: 05/2007

In 2003 you had coffee at a Starbucks in London with Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith. It was right after that thing with the last of the Daleks - that _thing_, and you try not to think about it now because you still have nightmares and sometimes you wake up vibrating and weak, your pulse pounding hard in your throat, your blood electric and painful in your veins. You were reeling and shell-shocked and he was in his eleventh incarnation, but only just. His hair was ginger and he was delighted, or as delighted as he could be about anything, then.

You don't know what he was thinking, taking you there, striking up that conversation. He was your Doctor then, not hers, and you think maybe that's why he did it. He wouldn't have, before, but that Doctor was prone to grand gestures and passion and the new one is prone to more quiet self-destruction. He scares you less, but worries you more, leaves you constantly bewildered and concerned.

He may have done it to torture himself. You don't think he did it to torture you; while he could be callous he was rarely intentionally cruel. If it had happened earlier, it would have explained his distance in the beginning. It would have illustrated clearly how improbable even she was once, but you already knew that by then. It was cruel of you to make him love you, but it also wasn't your fault and you think he wasn't being fair. He's never fair. He chose to love you when he chose you, and then he asked for too much. He never asked for enough.

You understand these things as you are leaving. You may have understood them then, when under every guarded word to her was the message to you that everyone leaves in the end.

You thought that she was beautiful and tragically real. She was so young, had seen so little of the world. She laughed too easily and wore too much make-up. She ran her tongue over her teeth when she smiled, and it made her look calculating and adorable. He was in conversation with Mickey about something mundane (his photographic memory for worlds and years of events always astounded you) and she leaned over to whisper to you conspiratorially, gesturing at him with a cock of her head, thrumming with playful curiosity. _Your friend's not from around here, then, is he? Doesn't seem to like me much. _ He could barely even look at her and the rigid tension in his shoulders and the set of his jaw made you tremble. You shook your head and looked away; you could have warned her, but she came before you and you didn't have the right. It's worth it anyway, for all that it costs. She wasn't the type to listen, not the type to stop. You pieced together long ago why he needed you in order to recover from her.

She seemed too simple, so specific. Things that are larger than life lose their edges and their focus, and you thought that she was not what he said, but he makes everyone more and less than they are. You feel it in yourself, how you have been heightened and generalized. You have been made allegorical. You felt a certain kinship with her, this girl who was not yet symbolic, but whose shadow you had already endured.

Mickey sat with his arm slung over the back of her chair, and she kept glancing at him and touching his shoulder, his knee, sharing secrets with her smile like they were the only two people in the world who mattered and the strangers were nothing more than an afternoon diversion. Inevitability hummed under your skin. You thought it was horrible.

She laughed, looking at you with huge, shining eyes. She wouldn't set foot in the Tardis for another year. You, her successor, were already on your way out. Time still makes you dizzy. It took far too long for you to understand it as a construct.

It wasn't that long ago. A few months, maybe a year, but those distinctions are arbitrary. Right now it's three years later than that day, and fifteen earlier than it was two hours ago. You're building up to good-bye. You feel like you've been making this decision since you met him, but you haven't. You spent half your time fighting to get him to keep you, the other half fighting to get him to let you go.

There's a new girl now. You watch her and you ache the same way. You should tell her, but she wouldn't hear you either. She's no different than Rose. She's no different than you, really, for all of your practicality and limits. You came before her, but you still don't have the right; no one knows going in. You're a self-selecting group. It takes a certain type to follow him and stay.

When you left Tallulah and Laszlo in New York, he was damaged and you were laughing. You didn't understand then, and remembering your words makes you flinch and blush. You were infatuated, but you weren't in love. He didn't love you either, not yet. You wouldn't take it back if you knew what being loved by him would mean, but maybe you wouldn't start it over again either. You wish you'd been warned; you're glad you weren't because you don't know what you'd have done. It's embarrassing, the things you didn't know.

"There's someone for everyone" you said, and that's a lie, or at the very least completely irrelevant. Robin looks at him now and her eyes are bright with hero worship. You recognize it; it makes you uncomfortable. She watches you too, from across the room when she thinks you're not paying attention. You're more her type than he is, she's made that clear, but that's such a little thing, immaterial in the context of his thrall. Last night she asked you to stay, but you've finally seen too much. It was only supposed to be one trip, and you don't quite know how it turned into this.

Robin's crazy and impulsive. She's exactly what he needs to recover from you. You adore her and you hate her and she's so young; you don't want to leave her alone with him. (Don't want to leave him with someone who doesn't understand). You're young too, still young, but the narrative of your life has been tied in knots. It's been two years? Three? Five? There's no way to keep track when you're ricocheting through space time. You don't know how old you are. You'll never know how old you are again. There's something liberating in those hidden years you carry with you, years no one else will ever know.

Tomorrow (though that distinction is meaningless) you'll step out of the Tardis into the alley five minutes after he picked you up. It will be London in 2007. In Dublin, Robin will be ten years old, but it's okay because you won't cross her path. You'll go home, and the next day you'll call your mother before work to try and soothe the family tensions. There are reasons why you have to go back while you're still unchanged enough to be the Martha they remember, but that doesn't keep everything from twisting up in your chest; it doesn't force the air into your lungs when you're trying to consciously remind yourself to breathe. It's probably too late. You know that because he isn't fighting you. He wouldn't let you go so easily if he thought you still had time.

He's laughing with her on the other side of the Tardis. They'll be good together. They might be disastrous. You remember being her; you're humbled by his endurance.

You wrap your arms around his waist and tell him to come for you, let you know how he's getting on. He agrees, but he's lying. You're shamefully grateful for the pretense. He brushes his hand over your face, curls his fingers in your hair and says your name like he's never done this before. You wonder if the good-byes get harder. That's one question you've never dared ask. You didn't like to hear their names, but now you wish you'd known who they were, what legacy you are passing on.

It's the only time you've ever felt like the first.


End file.
